“Your clothes should be tight enough to show you’re a woman, but loose enough to show you’re a lady.”Mae West

Flashing. When I was a young girl, a mere few years ago, we knew nothing of pedophiles, rapists or abductions.What we were warned about was ‘the flasher’, the guy lurking down the lane wearing nothing underneath his coat, the guy waiting for us unsuspecting girls to pass by whereupon he would ‘flash’ us by opening his coat to reveal himself in all his naked glory. We were all suitably terrified of this ‘flasher’ and it has taken me many years to see a man in a trench coat, in my mind ‘the flasher’ always wore a trench coat I have no idea why, and not want to run screaming hysterically away. Now I realise my friends and I were quite innocent but most others found ‘the flasher’ a humorous figure, became adept at spotting them and with a derogatory quip about the pathetic individual’s manhood, successfully turned the tables. In time ‘The Flasher’ became an object of ridicule, a wretched figure subject to derision and contempt. Many of today’s celebrities should take note. This obsession with ‘flashing’ on the red carpet, on instagram, in music videos,in magazines in fact just about anywhere can and will only produce the same results. Ultimately they too will become figures of ridicule, reduced to a piteous caricature, mere cannon fodder for comedians and the tabloids. I am not going to name names, we all know who the culprits and anyway the list is unfortunately getting longer by the minute. Apart from over familiarity with the bodies of many of our current media darlings, there is also the perplexing trend for the mirroring of these looks on us ordinary folk. Apart from the moral and ethical arguments of this new fashion direction, at least a lot of the Hollywood skin is tanned and toned. The skin you see around town is not so added to the fact that some body parts are on display that should not, butt cheeks, you also have to deal with the visual onslaught of rolls of fat. This is not pleasant. Many of these people would do well to take note of not only what happened to ‘the flasher’ but the wise words of Ms Monroe, a super sexy woman who was completely comfortable with her own body, with her own nudity but who knew where and when to self-display.